A realtor who appears on Netflix’s reality series “Owning Manhattan” has warned home insurance prices could skyrocket, as more and more natural disasters continue to impact the United States.
Insurance companies will take a serious hit thanks to Hurricane Helene‘s recent ravaging of Florida and North Carolina, and that will translate to higher premiums, real estate agent Ryan Serhant told Fox Business.
“It is one of the greatest insurance crises that we’ll see, I think, in a very, very long time,” Serhant said, adding very few homeowners of living in the Carolinas and Florida actually have flood insurance. “What’s more frightening to me is that only two to four percent of homeowners actually have flood insurance. It’s about $34 billion of bad.”
So far, Hurricane Helene has killed more than 200 people.
Online insurance marketplace Insurify said it anticipates Florida residents alone could see a 7% spike in their home insurance premiums this year.
At $11,759, Florida has the highest average home insurance rate in the nation. In 2023, Floridian homeowners paid an average of $10,996 for coverage.
In Louisiana, the average annual homeowner insurance rate is more than $6,300, three times the national average. The Bayou State follows Florida with the second-highest home insurance rates nationwide, but Insurify expects costs to rise an additional 23% in 2024, putting the average premium at approximately $7,800.
Since 2019, more than a dozen home insurance companies have gone bankrupt, and Farmers Insurance no longer offers insurance to Florida homeowners.
“It’s a travesty,” said Serhant, who added the American real estate market is in a state of limbo, despite the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates.
“Inventory is up, interest rates are at 20-month lows, but buyers are still sitting on the sidelines,” Serhant said. “People are waiting. They want to see if deals are going to come.”
He notes coverage can be obtained “through the National Flood Insurance Program,” which is “$1,000 a year on top of all of your other costs.”
